33rd Children’s Hospital Gala: Fresh and fun

Peter and Cathy Culshaw with daughters Alexa, 18, and Kelly, 14. (Steve Peterson, Special to The Denver Post)

Can’t really say it was a case of teaching an old dog new tricks, but the 33rd Children’s Hospital Gala was fresh, new and a ton of fun. It also raised $1.5 million.

Let’s start with cocktail hour: It’s a two-hour romp, actually, that initially gained notoriety for the expansive seafood buffet that is served while guests place silent auction bids and schmooze. This year, gala chairs Peter and Cathy Culshaw really ramped it up by adding features that included three Olympic athletes to challenge guests at a Wii station; entertainment (the call to dinner was made via breakdancers) and a couple of notable extras in the food and drink department.

The seafood was still there with a seemingly endless supply of crab claws and shrimp, as was the martini bar. New was a wine station with top-shelf reds and whites and an assortment of compatible nibbles … stuff like bricks of bleu cheese with sliced baguettes and crackers; candied pecans; slices of dried apple, and a couple of varieties of pizza. There also was a bar devoted to Scotch, again with appropriate yummies set out alongside.

The Olympians were two-time bobsled gold medalist Steven Holcomb; Michelle Roark, who competed twice in freestyle ski; and Hannah Pennington, a three-time Paralympic skier. Pennington also has been a Children’s Hospital patient. Click here to see pictures.

The 1,450 guests dined in a Hyatt Regency Convention Center ballroom that BJ Dyer and Guenther Vogt from Bouquets had decorated in shades of copper, claret and cinnamon with centerpieces of terra cotta and coffee break roses mixed with hypericum, kangaroo paws, curly willow, flax foliage and fresh pomegranates in gold ceramic containers.

“BJ spent hours working with out-of-state linen companies to get them to manufacture the look we wanted,” Vogt said. “Many of the linens, and all of the chair covers, were specifically produced for this special evening.” And, while guests were enjoying their filet mignon dinners, the Bouquets crew was transforming the ballroom foyer into a lounge for the coffee and Pinkberry sundae bars that opened once headliner Jay Leno finished his 45-minute standup routine and the award-winning Atlanta dance band, Party on the Moon, began its first set.

Party on the Moon’s previous gigs have included President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Eli Manning’s wedding in Cabo San Lucas and a Donald Trump New Year’s Eve bash at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

The Culshaws — he’s president of Shea Properties and chair of the Children’s Hospital Foundation board of trustees — chose What Matters Most as the theme for the 2010 gala, and they had a very personal reason for doing so. “If it were not for the care she received at Children’s 18 years ago, our daughter, Alexa, might not be here today,” Peter Culshaw said. Alexa and her sister, Kelly, 14, accompanied their parents to the gala.

Peter Culshaw also sits on the hospital board, the foundation’s real property committee and the hospital’s finance and joint investment committees. He’s a past chair of the Children’s Hospital Research Institute board.

With such a large crowd, it’s probably more prudent for me to say who wasn’t there than to try and include everyone who was. But what the heck, here are a few:

Terry and Pat Colip (he’s managing partner and chief financial officer of Cell-Point, a Centennial-based company that’s bringing to market a cancer-detection imaging product that has the potential to revolutionize how the disease is diagnosed and treated) were with a group that included neurosurgeon Michael Handler and his wife, Wendy; pediatric surgeon Frank Chang and his wife, Nancy, and veteran TV journalist (28 Emmys) and 670 KLTT Radio host Stephanie Riggs.

Kelly Kennedy, chair-elect of the hospital board, and her husband, Michael, were with her parents, Charlie and Diane Gallagher; the Kennedys, in fact, were the ones credited with getting Jay Leno to headline the bash. Seems they knew somebody who knew somebody and …

Josh Hanfling was talking to Tim and Libby Brown about his involvement with the Clinton Global Initiative; he was due to spend the next week attending meeting of the group in New York. The upcoming 50th reunion of their East High School graduating class was a topic for SmithBarney vice president Paul Esserman and attorney Stephen Weinstein.

Realtor Edie Marks was celebrating a “significant” birthday by filling a table with family (hubby Mort, daughters Lori and Elise, sons-in-law Jim Connors and Jeff Gruitch) and friends (Linda Goto, Ginger Parietti) while such former gala chairs as Joy Johnson, Kristin and Blair Richardson and Virginia and Scott Reiman joined hospital president Jim Shmerling and foundation chief Steve Winesett in congratulating the Culshaws on a job well done.

Study after study has shown that when it comes to charitable fundraisers, Denver has more per capita than any comparably sized city in the nation. Joanne Davidson has been covering them for The Denver Post since 1985, coming here from her native California where she'd spent the previous seven years as San Francisco bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report magazine.